The snowboard used in practicing the well known and popular sport of snowboarding is typically an elongated generally flat board. A pair of boot bindings, to which the snowboard user's worn boots are to be held, are normally secured directly to the snowboard at two spaced locations along the snowboard's longitudinal axis. The bindings are normally positioned or oriented so that, when the user's boots are held by the bindings, his or her feet are spaced from one another and are angularly oriented with respect to the board's longitudinal axis, usually between 90.degree. and 45.degree. (corresponding to 0.degree. to 45.degree. from perpendicular to the snowboard's longitudinal axis) depending upon the personal preference of the user, although angular orientations from perpendicular may sometimes be as great as 60.degree..
When the user is not actively snowboarding but desires to walk or stand, for example prior to and after engaging in a snowboarding run, or while approaching and waiting in a ski lift line, the user typically removes his or her boot from one of the bindings (generally from the rear binding) while his other boot remains secured to the other binding (generally the forward binding). The tendency is to walk with his free foot while dragging the snowboard with his secured foot, in the direction of the snowboard's longitudinal axis. However, walking in this manner is hindered since the user's secured foot is generally close to perpendicular of the snowboard's longitudinal axis, and the user incurs lateral stress on his secured ankle as well as his knee and hip.
Boot bindings for snowboards, whether of the plate type or of the high back type, are conventionally directly secured to the snowboard and oriented in a user-preferred snowboarding position or orientation with respect to the snowboard's longitudinal axis. With respect to such securement, some bindings may be rotated and locked at different angular positions only by using external tools and with the boot removed from the binding, while others may be rotated and locked with the boot secured to the binding and without using external tools. Both such bindings are concerned with providing a personally suitable or preferred stance angle while snowboarding, while the latter type of binding may also be used for rotating the secured boot for alignment generally parallel to the snowboard's longitudinal axis for ease of walking. With this latter type, however, prior to resumption of a snowboarding operation, the user rotates the binding back to a snowboarding orientation normally without assurance that the originally desired snowboarding position or orientation has in fact been effected.